Swedish university backs down on foreign quotas

Lund University in Sweden has now decided to change its admission procedures for this academic year following an outcry about quotas that excluded international students from some subjects.

Now, the university has switched to manual selection of foreign students who were deprived of a place by unwanted side-effects of the new procedures.

This is according to the education news site University World News.

Unfair system caused an outcry

Lund University’s decision follows widespread criticism of the new Swedish student selection system.

See the article Swedish university rules keep internationals out here.

As a result of changes to the admissions procedure this year, foreign students with higher grades than Swedes could be turned down because applicants were divided into different pools. Only certain percentage of each pool could be granted a place.

That meant that if only one foreign student applied for a subject, the foreign applicants could not be admitted because there was no quota for that pool, in that subject.

75 will now be offered a place

»We have decided to carry out a special admissions review for this group,« Lund University Vice-chancellor Per Eriksson says.

»It requires extra work for our local admissions department, but the important thing is that it gives greater fairness in the assessment of qualifications,« says Lundell, who is President of the University Admissions Board.

The review will only be carried out for programmes and courses where no foreign students were admitted.

This affects 120 out of 1,100 subjects, and around 75 students who had been rejected will now be offered a place, according to Bengt Lundell.

luci@adm.ku.dk